Empowering Climate Resilient Women Through Community Based Adaptation – The Adaptation Learning Programme for Africa (ALP)

This project is empowering women to develop community-based adaptation against the impacts of climate change. Communities in four African countries are provided with access to climate information and given tools to innovate their mitigation approaches in response to evolving challenges. This allows the communities to co-design adaptation strategies that can also engage with climate policy at the regional and international levels. This activity works to empower women and increase communities’ resilience to climate change, while contributing to sustainable development.

Fast facts:

25,400 individuals reached;
678,823 individuals benefitted;
For every $1 invested, more than $4 returned over four years;
Participatory Scenario Planning workshops carried out in each of Kenya’s 47 counties.

The problem

Nowhere on the planet are people more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than in sub-Saharan Africa. The continent is already prone to erratic rainfall, droughts, floods, and cyclones - and climate change will only exacerbate these ongoing challenges.

The injustice of climate change is that its negative impacts fall disproportionately on poor communities, who have contributed least to its causes. Women as well suffer more from the impacts of climate change, as they are largely disempowered and lack access to resources.

The solution

The Adaptation Learning Programme focuses on integrating women’s empowerment into community-based adaptation. Strategies include setting up village savings and loans groups that support individuals in saving up to invest in non-climate-sensitive livelihoods, or to provide a buffer in times of shocks or stress. Specific activities promoted for women include the cultivation of drought-tolerant or early-maturing seed varieties, farmer field schools promoting conservation agriculture, livestock rearing, storing of harvest until the price is higher, and cultivation of economic trees.

In addition to these specific strategies, the program has developed a number of practical and simple community-based adaptation models. These include: climate and farmer field schools, participative community based adaptation action plans, participatory scenario planning, and integration of adaptation into local government planning.

Helping the planet

Promotion of conservation agriculture results in more efficient use of natural resources, which preserves soil and water. By developing sources of income other than pastoralism, cycles of deforestation and land degradation are broken. In addition, activities involving reforestation help restore the natural environment.

Helping people

Village savings and loans schemes have particularly empowered women economically and socially, providing an important source of financial security. The diversification of livelihoods toward less climate-sensitive activities such as handicrafts or petty trade allows vulnerable people more control in managing climate risks. The financial empowerment of women through group savings and loans, women-enterprise funds, and small-scale businesses has led to greater inclusion in decision-making. Additionally, women now play more of a supportive role in their communities.

Scaling up

The project was designed to share information on the impact of different approaches and capacity building with other organizations or institutions, promoting the spread and replication of community-based adaptation. This is also supported by the design of the approach, which requires few resources for implementation. Mainstreaming community-based adaptation approaches into local and national government development policies and plans holds the most potential for scaling up, for example through the integration of community adaptation into climate change planning at the local, regional and national levels.